ARTICLE
Today, it is nearly impossible for consumers to create a simplistic smart home ecosystem unless they standardize on devices from a single vendor. But after more than two years of development and refinement, the long-anticipated industry-unifying Matter protocol, which was released in October 2022, is ready to help device developers address this issue.
To ensure Matter is not seen as just another protocol that adds to the fragmentation and interoperability issues with these devices, ensuring the ability to bridge between existing non-Matter smart home devices and new Matter-based devices is a critical part of the current Matter 1.0 release. Download our new white paper to learn more about the following topics related to Matter bridging:
- What bridging is and why it is necessary
- How bridging works
- How the Silicon Labs Unify SDK supports bridging, including a detailed example using smart lights from various vendors.
- Information on the work Silicon Labs is currently doing to continue to enhance its support for bridging
Today, it is nearly impossible for consumers to create a simplistic smart home ecosystem unless they standardize on devices from a single vendor. But after more than two years of development and refinement, the long-anticipated industry-unifying Matter protocol, which was released in October 2022, is ready to help device developers address this issue.
To ensure Matter is not seen as just another protocol that adds to the fragmentation and interoperability issues with these devices, ensuring the ability to bridge between existing non-Matter smart home devices and new Matter-based devices is a critical part of the current Matter 1.0 release. Download our new white paper to learn more about the following topics related to Matter bridging:
- What bridging is and why it is necessary
- How bridging works
- How the Silicon Labs Unify SDK supports bridging, including a detailed example using smart lights from various vendors.
- Information on the work Silicon Labs is currently doing to continue to enhance its support for bridging
Using smart home and automation devices from a variety of vendors has historically been a pain point for consumers. This is because each vendor’s devices are using a unique smart device ecosystem based on the wireless Internet of Things (IoT) protocol of the vendor’s choice, resulting in the need for consumers to use different apps to control devices from different vendors. This also means interoperability and communication between devices from different vendors is currently not possible. However, the new Matter protocol is here to address these, and other common issues, facing vendors creating smart home and automation devices as well as the consumers who use them.
While new devices can easily be designed using the new Matter specification, more than 60 million households in just the United States are currently using smart home devices that pre-date Matter and are based on other wireless IoT protocols such as Z-Wave and Zigbee. To be sure Matter is not seen as just another protocol that adds to the fragmentation and interoperability issues with these devices, instead it facilitates the ability to bridge between existing non-Matter smart home devices and new Matter-based devices as this is a key feature of the current Matter 1.0 release.
In this whitepaper, we look at how to seamlessly bring non-Matter devices into the Matter ecosystem through bridging and explore how Silicon Labs is providing the hardware, software and tools required to make bridging an accessible option for vendors and consumers.
What is Bridging and Why is it Necessary?
As mentioned, the smart home and automation market is not standardized. Today, there is a large install base of devices that use non-IP-based Zigbee, Z-Wave, and other wireless IoT protocols. Therefore, to not add to this fragmentation problem, a method that allows new Matter devices and existing non-Matter devices to communicate and operate in the same ecosystem is necessary. This was a key consideration as the Matter protocol was developed, which is why Matter is different than other wireless IoT protocols. Instead, Matter is an IP-based protocol that operates as an application layer on top of technologies like Ethernet, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and Thread.
While it might be possible to add Matter functionality through over-the-air (OTA) updates for some newer devices deployed in homes, for most devices, bridges will be the best option for bringing existing smart devices using other non-IP-based protocols into the Matter ecosystem, or what is known as the Matter fabric. Matter bridges extend connectivity to non-Matter IoT devices in a Matter fabric so that consumers can keep using their existing non-Matter devices, such as those using Zigbee and Z-Wave, together with new Matter devices. Bridging is an important part of the Matter fabric as it is necessary to make Matter a truly unifying protocol.
It is also important to note there are other considerations when deciding whether to bridge or not. Existing non-Matter systems have a mix of device types that may not all have a 1:1 equivalent device type in Matter. The existing systems may provide automations with their non-Matter device types that cannot yet be replicated in Matter, but certain device types do have a Matter equivalent and are highly desirable to enable. Bridging lets your ecosystem to continue to support all their non-Matter device types and once Matter achieves enough feature parity the bridged ecosystem, they can decide to make the transition to native Matter for all their devices.
How Does Bridging Between Matter and Non-Matter Devices Work?
At a high level, a Matter bridge works by performing the protocol translation between Matter and non-Matter protocols so that the non-Matter devices appear as bridged devices to the Matter fabric as illustrated in Figure 1.
Figure 1. A high-level diagram showing how a Matter bridge creates a connection between the Matter fabric and non-Matter network devices.
While the details on how this type of unified multi-protocol communication occurs looks complex, the process of bridging smart home devices is all simplified for the end user. To add a Matter bridge to a network, a user simply scans the QR code that comes with the bridge. Once the bridge is added to the network, the user can open the bridge app on their phone to see all their smart devices showing up, regardless of vendor or protocol
used. This means all devices can be configured and controlled from this central app, or the controller app the user prefers, rather than the fragmented approach of using multiple apps that is required today. In some cases, existing ZigBee or Z-Wave hubs and gateways may be upgradeable to a Matter Bridge. We are already seeing examples of this from the key ecosystem players.
How Silicon Labs’ Unify SDK Supports Bridging Non-Matter Devices into the Matter Ecosystem
To enable the development of a bridging solution without needing expertise in every possible option for the “guts” of every IoT device, a modular and extensible software framework is needed. This is the role the Silicon Labs' Unify Software Development Kit (SDK) serves. Unify SDK is a set of software components designed to simplify IoT infrastructure development for IoT devices including gateways, access points, hubs, bridges, and application processor-based end products.
Unify SDK was developed as an open, modular, and portable architecture based on ubiquitous lightweight MQTT technology. It supports protocol-specific translations between different wireless IoT protocols, which now includes Matter. Unify SDK natively runs on Linux but is architected for portability and it provides software source and binary packages for Raspberry Pi 4.
Figure 2. This diagram shows the overall architecture of a Unify controller. With Unify SDK, one system can provide interoperability between multiple IoT stacks and IoT services, including the Matter Bridge.
The Unify-Matter bridge application shown in Figure 2, which is part of Unify SDK, is based on the Matter Application Software from the Connectivity Standards Alliance (CSA). The application receives the ZCL commands on the Matter protocol interface, translates to the uniform control language (UCL) data model, and publishes to an MQTT interface. Let’s look more specifically at how the Unify-Matter bridge application in Unify SDK can be used to bridge subnet devices to Matter. In the diagram in Figure 3 below, you can see from right to left the Zigbee and Z-Wave protocol stacks, unify protocol controllers, MQTT broker, matter bridge, and matter application fabric.
Figure 3. A representation of how the Unify-Matter bridge application in Unify SDK can be used to bridge subnet devices using Zigbee and Z-Wave to Matter.
The end result of this paradigm is that Z-Wave and Zigbee devices are seen as bridge devices on the Matter fabric. This is because the Zigbee cluster library commands on the matter protocol interface are translated to the UCL, which then drives the wireless radios for the end nodes and Z-Wave and Zigbee.
A Real-World Matter Bridging Example
Let’s now consider a real-world bridging example using smart light bulbs from different vendors. In this example, we have some lights using Matter and other lights using Zigbee and Z-Wave protocols and we are using a Google Nest Hub as the controller. In this scenario, a Raspberry Pi is running the Unify SDK, and the web-based Unify user interface (UI) is used to create a group containing all the lights from the different vendors that are using different wireless protocols. This group is created by sending an “add group” command to both endpoints and the Matter lights in the bridge's node endpoints.
To commission the Matter bridge device, we simply scan the QR code that comes with the Matter bridge. The bridge will then connect, and as you can see in Figure 4, from the Google Nest Hub app, we can see all the lights and the bridge we added.
Figure 4. A side-by-side comparison of what is seen in the Unify web UI and the Google Home app once the Matter bridge is connected.
Now we can start controlling the lights from the Google Home app. The single multicast message is received and interpreted by both the Matter bridge and the native Matter lights as part of the group. The bridge then forwards this message to the relevant lights and Unify translates the supported commands to the appropriate subnets – one Zigbee device and two Z-Wave devices in this case. This is done by sending a multicast message to the Z-Wave devices and a single cast message to the Zigbee device. The controller can now send a simple on/off command to control this entire group of lights.
Silicon Labs’ Continuing Support for Bridging Matter and Non-Matter Devices
Today, Silicon Labs offers complete Matter protocol solutions for end products with Wi-Fi or Thread connectivity, as well as Open Thread Boarder Router (OTBR) solutions using a combination of wireless systems-on-chip (SoCs) and software options. Many IoT companies, including Silicon Labs, are also now introducing bridging products that will support both existing and deployed Zigbee and Z-Wave products in addition to newer Matter products.
Silicon Labs recently launched support for both Matter-to-Zigbee and Matter-to-Z-Wave bridge solutions with full functional Unify SDK software. This new bridging solution currently supports lighting devices (on/off and dimmable functionality as well as colored lights) and temperature and occupancy sensors. We are also planning to launch support for more device types and provide interoperability support with third-party Matter applications such as Google Home and Apple HomeKit in the near future.
Closing the Wireless IoT Gap with Matter and New Bridging Solutions
If the release of Matter makes it really easy to configure new products, but it is difficult to adapt existing devices already in consumers’ homes, then Matter really cannot deliver on its promises for interoperability and simplicity. Therefore, a multi-protocol solution that can seamlessly bridge existing non-Matter devices with new Matter devices as illustrated throughout this paper is essential. Silicon Labs is well prepared to ensure bridging technology is readily available as vendors release new Matter devices by providing both IoT product development tools with Unify SDK and new Matter bridging solutions.
Learn more about all the silicon, software, and tools Silicon Labs is providing for Matter over Thread and Matter over Wi-Fi development.